Aye I hate stuff like this. It's too common with acts who use drum machines. Eg I went to see 808 state at BAAD last year. They had a live fucking drummer. 808 state. Trying to play on songs that were so good in a large part to the particular Roland technology it was made on. Their name is even named after it 🙈
I've watched New Order videos live in the 80s and New order live from the last 10 years or so and the 80s live stuff is much better. They use the synthesisers from the recorded version because they had too, Where as modern live performances they use some computerised verison which sounds different and worse. They also up the tempo which I hate
The snare is from a Fad Gadget song. It's absolutely just as important to carry the key sounds of a song as it is to maintain the melodic hook and lyrics.
I don’t like the touring band members, they look like session musicians and always embellish songs with music flourish. In DM’s case I’d ban all instruments apart from keyboards.
I suppose it’s a case by case basis but as a general rule of thumb I like the live version to sound as different as possible. The band Eels are known for doing some very different arrangements at shows. This got them in hot water when after Novocaine (their big hit) came out they played it in a weird bossa nova style and people were angry. So I realise I’m in the minority.
I can't stand it. I watched a Britney Spears concert on the telly once, and she did Baby One More Time in a jazz style. The way I see it, people aren't there cos of the jazz version.
That's a different thing altogether. That's intentionally trying to provide an enhanced or alternative version which I can respect. Often though it's just laziness and/or in many electronic acts cases, a desperate attempt to seem "legit" as they're playing with or on "real instruments". Pfft
I had to turn off the DM in Mexico Netflix thing because it was so disappointing as soon as the band started playing. I loved the hype atmosphere building up beforehand. All of five or ten minutes of it.
I haven’t watched many bands’ live tour films, even though I’m a massive fan of so many bands. The Depeche Mode in Mexico film got me excited. I was thinking it would be as good as the ancient Nirvana live tour VHS video I had and obsessively watched as a teenager. Oh well. (Dying to say “nevermind” but it’s actually not one word…)
That track didn’t bother me personally. I went to the IMAX screening and the whole film was a bit hit or miss.
I’ve always hated when electronic acts replace drum machines with a live drummer. It’s presented as some kind of upgrade, as if adding a bloke with sticks automatically makes it more “real”. In reality you’re just removing the thing the music is actually built on, which is precision. Timing. Relentless repeatability. The bit humans are famously bad at.
Then there’s the finger-drumming obsession. Fred Again and that whole strain of content. As if anyone who’s ever made music doesn’t know exactly what’s going on there. It’s purely for optics. Something to look busy doing while the track plays. A visual justification for being on stage.
I don’t want to hear slightly late drums. I don’t want to watch someone mime urgency. I’m not here for “human feel”. If I wanted that, I’d listen to a band. I’m here because electronic music does control, rigidity and repetition better than people ever will, and that’s the point. It’s emperor’s new clothes stuff. Everyone nodding along, pretending this is more authentic, when really it’s just performance layered on top of performance.
I’m pretty sure I either saw an interview & read Alan himself addressing the change of the snare drum “World in My Eyes” on the Faith & Devotion tour…. When they toured Violator, they had issues with the original snare as it wasn’t as present in the live mix taking into consideration factors like huge live environment & crowd noise plus venue acoustics… They even added a more aggressive synth bass layer cause the live mix was thin & didn’t have the impact they wanted. I saw DM on both of those tours. I made music back then & still do…. The original WIME snare was hard to hear in that environment. Sometimes the changes arise from practical purposes. I dunno if any of you have played in a band or even DJ’d, being able to hear the snare “live” is pretty important
They simply don’t know a thing about sound. The original was 99% pure Alan Wilder work. During all These years they have totally forgotten the precise reason why DM are DM. They are Not DM since 1992. That’s the sad reality. They now sound much worse than Tribute Bands.
Funny Pete Gordeno on this podcast talked about keeping it like the record and only 5% would want you to mess with it. Maybe he’s referring more his bit of the synth sounds.
I remember hearing for years Dave Gahan wanted a live drummer and eventually got it in the 90s. Early days they even used a reel to reel playing a drum track
I know a little bit of the background to this and it’s not the bands doing.
Rob Halford the singer in Judas Priest hated that snare more than anything else in the world, he tried to negotiate with the band when they used to do the jam night at Sammy Dows, but the band were like, naw , fuck off, limmy pure loves that Snare, cause they know their fans.
Rob was properly pissed off and in the early days used to steal the drum machine before the gig forcing the band to use priests kit, but as you correctly point out they realised they could trigger any sound they wanted from the snare, initially they triggered Terry W
ogan saying “wank” but it wasn’t the same. So they used the original linn drum sound. This forced the by now furious priest frontman Rob to go to stow college and learn midi programming, so to this day he disguises himself as a cat and sneaks into every gig , reprogramming the sound to that of cosy Powell and dance with the devil. This is what triggered the Judas Priest single “ Breaking the law”
I saw someone quote this on a Reddit post earlier but I didn’t realise it was from you until checking the blog.
I think they overdo it with the live drumming throughout the set. It’s like some musicians think they have to prove that it’s a live performance by banging a physical drum kit, but doing so loses the precise sound of the original music.
They have a trigger on the snare for that bit which is usually much louder than the snare. If it was a TV performance I would blame the broadcast engineer for not following mix notes, but if it's your own film that's on the production itself. I mean even if you forgot to record it you could patch it in.
Aye I hate stuff like this. It's too common with acts who use drum machines. Eg I went to see 808 state at BAAD last year. They had a live fucking drummer. 808 state. Trying to play on songs that were so good in a large part to the particular Roland technology it was made on. Their name is even named after it 🙈
Fucking dreadful.
Drum geek here. Same goes for 80s bands who favoured a snare sound called gated reverb. When played live it was just reverb, with no gate.
I've watched New Order videos live in the 80s and New order live from the last 10 years or so and the 80s live stuff is much better. They use the synthesisers from the recorded version because they had too, Where as modern live performances they use some computerised verison which sounds different and worse. They also up the tempo which I hate
The snare is from a Fad Gadget song. It's absolutely just as important to carry the key sounds of a song as it is to maintain the melodic hook and lyrics.
I don’t like the touring band members, they look like session musicians and always embellish songs with music flourish. In DM’s case I’d ban all instruments apart from keyboards.
I suppose it’s a case by case basis but as a general rule of thumb I like the live version to sound as different as possible. The band Eels are known for doing some very different arrangements at shows. This got them in hot water when after Novocaine (their big hit) came out they played it in a weird bossa nova style and people were angry. So I realise I’m in the minority.
I can't stand it. I watched a Britney Spears concert on the telly once, and she did Baby One More Time in a jazz style. The way I see it, people aren't there cos of the jazz version.
That's a different thing altogether. That's intentionally trying to provide an enhanced or alternative version which I can respect. Often though it's just laziness and/or in many electronic acts cases, a desperate attempt to seem "legit" as they're playing with or on "real instruments". Pfft
I’m the same, I don’t see the point of reproducing the record.
Bring back Alan Wilder
Yes!
I had to turn off the DM in Mexico Netflix thing because it was so disappointing as soon as the band started playing. I loved the hype atmosphere building up beforehand. All of five or ten minutes of it.
I haven’t watched many bands’ live tour films, even though I’m a massive fan of so many bands. The Depeche Mode in Mexico film got me excited. I was thinking it would be as good as the ancient Nirvana live tour VHS video I had and obsessively watched as a teenager. Oh well. (Dying to say “nevermind” but it’s actually not one word…)
That track didn’t bother me personally. I went to the IMAX screening and the whole film was a bit hit or miss.
I’ve always hated when electronic acts replace drum machines with a live drummer. It’s presented as some kind of upgrade, as if adding a bloke with sticks automatically makes it more “real”. In reality you’re just removing the thing the music is actually built on, which is precision. Timing. Relentless repeatability. The bit humans are famously bad at.
Then there’s the finger-drumming obsession. Fred Again and that whole strain of content. As if anyone who’s ever made music doesn’t know exactly what’s going on there. It’s purely for optics. Something to look busy doing while the track plays. A visual justification for being on stage.
I don’t want to hear slightly late drums. I don’t want to watch someone mime urgency. I’m not here for “human feel”. If I wanted that, I’d listen to a band. I’m here because electronic music does control, rigidity and repetition better than people ever will, and that’s the point. It’s emperor’s new clothes stuff. Everyone nodding along, pretending this is more authentic, when really it’s just performance layered on top of performance.
I’m pretty sure I either saw an interview & read Alan himself addressing the change of the snare drum “World in My Eyes” on the Faith & Devotion tour…. When they toured Violator, they had issues with the original snare as it wasn’t as present in the live mix taking into consideration factors like huge live environment & crowd noise plus venue acoustics… They even added a more aggressive synth bass layer cause the live mix was thin & didn’t have the impact they wanted. I saw DM on both of those tours. I made music back then & still do…. The original WIME snare was hard to hear in that environment. Sometimes the changes arise from practical purposes. I dunno if any of you have played in a band or even DJ’d, being able to hear the snare “live” is pretty important
They simply don’t know a thing about sound. The original was 99% pure Alan Wilder work. During all These years they have totally forgotten the precise reason why DM are DM. They are Not DM since 1992. That’s the sad reality. They now sound much worse than Tribute Bands.
Funny Pete Gordeno on this podcast talked about keeping it like the record and only 5% would want you to mess with it. Maybe he’s referring more his bit of the synth sounds.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-tamp-podcast/id1824380707?i=1000740186092
I remember hearing for years Dave Gahan wanted a live drummer and eventually got it in the 90s. Early days they even used a reel to reel playing a drum track
I know a little bit of the background to this and it’s not the bands doing.
Rob Halford the singer in Judas Priest hated that snare more than anything else in the world, he tried to negotiate with the band when they used to do the jam night at Sammy Dows, but the band were like, naw , fuck off, limmy pure loves that Snare, cause they know their fans.
Rob was properly pissed off and in the early days used to steal the drum machine before the gig forcing the band to use priests kit, but as you correctly point out they realised they could trigger any sound they wanted from the snare, initially they triggered Terry W
ogan saying “wank” but it wasn’t the same. So they used the original linn drum sound. This forced the by now furious priest frontman Rob to go to stow college and learn midi programming, so to this day he disguises himself as a cat and sneaks into every gig , reprogramming the sound to that of cosy Powell and dance with the devil. This is what triggered the Judas Priest single “ Breaking the law”
if only the romanov's had been funny or something or like they say shown insight into their condition
I saw someone quote this on a Reddit post earlier but I didn’t realise it was from you until checking the blog.
I think they overdo it with the live drumming throughout the set. It’s like some musicians think they have to prove that it’s a live performance by banging a physical drum kit, but doing so loses the precise sound of the original music.
They have a trigger on the snare for that bit which is usually much louder than the snare. If it was a TV performance I would blame the broadcast engineer for not following mix notes, but if it's your own film that's on the production itself. I mean even if you forgot to record it you could patch it in.